


Prehistoric White Collar AU: Australopithecines

by Sholio



Series: Prehistoric White Collar AUs [1]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe - Prehistoric, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 05:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Side effect of studying archaeology: I wrote several short White Collar prehistory AUs during the semester and now I am inflicting them on everyone. They start out as total crack (this one) and get progressively less weird. This one, however, is The One In Which They Are Australopithecines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prehistoric White Collar AU: Australopithecines

**Author's Note:**

> This is located somewhere in the middle territory between gen and P/E/N, hence the tagging. I'm not entirely sure myself. There's nothing even remotely explicit, though.

It was a nice cave. The large male and his mate had discovered it when their band moved into the limestone outcropping above the forest. This was a good place. The open woodland provided ample foraging opportunities, while the limestone bluff provided shelter and an excellent view to watch for predators. A spring provided water, and the forest yielded fruit, leaves, tubers, and plenty of small animals such as frogs and rodents that could be caught with one's hands. It was a nice place to live.

Or so the big male thought, until he and his mate came back from gathering food to find a small male in their cave.

The big male chased him out. This small male was not part of their band, which meant that he must have wandered in from somewhere else. There was plenty of room for everyone. The big male did not wish to share his cave with anyone, particularly a strange male who might want to steal his mate or his food.

As it turned out, something _was_ missing -- something odd. There had been a pretty mussel shell in the cave that the big male had found in a stream and brought back to carry water in. He and his mate both liked it. It was shiny as well as useful. And now it was gone.

This new male was clearly trouble.

 

***

 

The new male continued to live in their cave complex, in a cave by himself away from the main group. No one really wanted him around, especially since he had a tendency to steal things -- shiny things especially, pretty rocks and such.

It was clear that the new male was lonely. He hung around the edges of the group, watching them groom each other. No one invited him in. He was evidently a different sort of person than they were -- about the same height, but very slender, and he smelled different. He couldn't eat the hard tubers and leaves that everyone else ate; he simply didn't have the jaws for it. He had to forage for fruit instead, which was uncommon at certain times of year, so he spent a lot of time catching frogs in the pools at the base of the spring, until the pools began to turn to caked mud in the dry season. This dry woodland was not a good place for a fruit-eater. The small male got thin, his sparse coat dull.

The big male felt sorry for him. He and his mate, between them, were good at catching small animals, birds and rodents and such. His mate was very quick, and he was large and strong, and he would flush small prey that she seized, or she would chase animals toward him and he hit them with a rock. There was not usually much need to hunt, since there were plenty of tubers and other plant foods in the woods; meat was just a nice treat as a change from a diet of plant foods, or it was for pregnant and nursing females to eat. But, as the dry season wore on, the big male and his mate hunted often and took the meat up to the small male's cave.

The big male hoped the small male would not repay him by attempting to steal his cave or his mate.

But he didn't; instead he joined them and hunted with them. He was very small and quick, with remarkably clever fingers. He could turn sticks into excellent tools for prying open mussels, digging into anthills, even making very clever stick traps for hunting. In return, the big male and his mate showed him how to strike rocks together to produce sharp edges for cutting things up. The small male liked that. It seemed that his people did not do that, because it was new to him, but he was very good at it.

And he liked things that were bright or colorful, such as the insides of mussel shells, flowers, and butterfly wings. Once when the three of them were exploring the forest, they came upon a bank of red clay above a little stream. The small male gathered handfuls of clay and stroked them on himself, admiring the color on his sparse fur. Then he made a handprint on a sun-warmed stone. The big male's mate liked this and she made a handprint too. The big male thought this was silly; hands were not meant for making red prints on things. But it seemed to make them happy, which made him happy. He lay on a sunny patch of grass and watched them play in the red clay. After a while, they washed it off and came over to lay with him. The big male's mate pillowed her head on his stomach while the small male snuggled comfortably against both of them -- and then rolled over and planted a red-clay-covered hand on the big male's chest.

The big male glared at him and bared his teeth. The small male, innocently wiping his hand on the grass, did not look properly chastised.

Biting him sounded like too much work. Also his mate had cracked an eye open and looked like she might need to do do some biting herself. The big male settled for planting his teeth lightly on the small male's neck to remind him who was in charge around here, and then groomed him carefully to prove there were no hard feelings.

Sometimes he got the impression they only pretended to let him be in charge. He'd better not come back to find red handprints all over the cave, though. That would simply be pushing things too far.

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking that Neal is the gracile kind of Australopithecus, while Peter & El are the larger, tool-making "robust" kind (which are currently considered a separate genus and may not have been contemporary with each other, but hey, hominid archaeology is constantly changing with new evidence and there's a lot we don't know, so why not?). See here for more info: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus>


End file.
